The Eye of the Beholder: Kink Meme Fill
by nsfweu
Summary: Cassandra has no idea how exactly Vivienne managed to convince her to model nude for a painting, but yet, here they are... Kink meme fill for anonymous on the LiveJournal page.


"Relax, darling. You look like a stuffed bear." the other woman purred, swirling the quill-thin paintbrush in her delicate fingers with a sort of nonchalant grace that did nothing to calm Cassandra's nerves.

The warrior clenched her jaw and begrudgingly did what she could to loosen her stress-tensed muscles, her white-knuckled grasp on the greatsword tightening as she dug the point harder against the floor. She stole a look at Vivienne just in time to see the woman's perfectly rouged lips curling into an elegant smirk.

"Well, I suppose that's the best I'm going to get," the white-clad woman mused to herself with a surreptitious sigh.

Cassandra managed a brief low growl of anguish, frustration, and embarrassment, her face reddening with each appraising glance she felt from Vivienne. Whatever evil sorcery the noblewoman had employed to orchestrate this situation was far more terrifying than the fusillades of ice that the Madame de Fer was so famous for—sometimes the Lady Seeker wondered if it was truly the Inquisitor Corypheus had to fear.

The two women stood alone, as they had done for what seemed now like hours to Cassandra, on Vivienne's personal ledge, amidst the imported luxuries the former Orlesian had insisted upon bringing with her from her villa. Cassandra silently cursed herself for refusing Vivienne's request for walls to be constructed about her outpost; the women's only privacy now came from royal blue curtains drawn about her Vivienne sat atop a spindly-legged stool, her pronged hat resting at her feet. Across the makeshift room, Cassandra served as a foil for all things Vivienne—where the enchantress was slender, elflike, almost, Cassandra was pure sinew and muscle. Where Vivienne was composed elegance, the Seeker was faltering bravado. And where the artist was dressed in the most elaborate and contemporary of Orlesian finery, Cassandra was stark naked.

"How much longer is this going to be, Vivienne?" asked Cassandra through gritted teeth, her face seeming hotter than the sun beaming down upon her bare back. "You realize that all someone has to do is look up, just for a moment, and they'll see—"

"You cannot rush art, my dear," Vivienne said distractedly, looking Cassandra over dryly and returning to her canvas. "Furthermore, your modesty is safe with me. No one will be looking; and even so, you can see nothing from the ground. There's a reason I chose this place to lodge."

"So you could paint nude portraits of all your companions?"

Vivienne let out a brief, dry laugh, "A lady needs her privacy. And, yes, so do all persons who may or may not be serving as the subjects of a lady's paintings."

Cassandra's grimace persisted. Skyhold was as silent as it ever would be—the Inquisitor had left not long ago, shouting something incoherent and excited about a dragon and the Western Approach. Usually in the Inquisitor's absence, Cassandra busied herself with training the recruits or perfecting her own technique in the courtyard—today, though, she found her situation entirely different. The sounds of the training grounds were light upon the wind—she could hear the warbled yells of her soldiers, her generals, as they sparred and the shouts of corrections that came with drills. For a moment she was claimed by her mind, by the scene she saw playing out on the grounds. Then Vivienne's voice snapped her back to the extant, cutting through her mind's eye like a knife through canvas.

"Arch your back a bit more, my dear." Vivienne said expectantly, continuing to lay minute strokes of paint against the cream-white canvas as she spoke. "I've seen you on the battlefield. You must simply make yourself statelier. More regal."

"And you swear this is going to be a—a personal collection piece _only_." Cassandra asked, feeling her face redden.

What Vivienne could possibly gain out of this besides potent blackmail material was beyond her. Since disrobing, she had made the Orlesian woman swear up and down no less than four times that this painting was never, ever, _ever_ going to be seen or heard of by anyone beyond the partition. She could only imagine what would happen to her chances of becoming the next Divine should this little mistake become public knowledge. Possibly worse were her notions of what might happen if a certain dwarven novelist were to find out. She shuddered at the thought.

"Arch your back, darling." Vivienne repeated with more sanguinity.

"Vivienne, this is humiliating enough as it is—"

"Humiliating?" the mage echoed with bemusement. "You act as if this is a punishment. I did not know the stalwart Seeker was a woman capable of humiliation."

"I'm standing completely… completely nude in front of one of the most powerful and influential noblewomen in Orlais." Cassandra replied, trying and failing to meet Vivienne's unwavering gaze. "I think Andraste herself—"

"Funny you should mention Andraste, my Lady Seeker." Vivienne interrupted, annoyance playing on her voice as artifice fell away. "I was just about to invoke Her justice if my dear subject continued to ignore my instruction to arch her back."

"Well, that's—" Cassandra began to fumble for some sort of response when Vivienne, with a gruff sigh, cattishly stepped off her stool and onto the floor, heeled boots causing a pleasant, hollow ring as she slunk closer to the Seeker.

Were it not for Vivienne's arresting gaze and her own nudity, Cassandra would've tactically retreated onto the balcony. Instead, she remained frozen in her place as the woman drew closer to her before putting a hand on her shoulder.

"What is the saying—'if you want something done right, you must do it yourself'?" Vivienne murmured, her hand delicately running from the top of Cassandra's pale, freckled shoulder to the small of her muscled back, her feather-like touch causing gooseflesh to prickle across the Seeker's torso, her back pushing inward, away from Vivienne's all-too sensory touch.

"Oh?" Vivienne said with a haughty lilt, slight smirk audible on her voice. Vivienne bit her tongue and allowed to her face to heat further. "You're rather… sensitive for such a hulking beast of a woman."

Not sure how insulting that was supposed to come out, but certain that it was indeed an insult, Cassandra let out a half-seethed sigh of annoyance and dropped her pose, the sword clattering to the ground with a resounding hollow clatter that filled Skyhold and likely turned a few heads their way.

"Well, at least I shouldn't have to remind you again." Vivienne said with a shrug, returning to her stool.

"I'm leaving." Cassandra said angrily, turning away from the painter. She strode towards the curtained wall and had pushed aside the curtain a few inches when she was stopped by Vivienne's harsh socialite's laugh.

"Aren't you forgetting something, my love?" she quarried through her laughter, indicating the pile of clothing laying discarded at the Orlesian's feet that she had somehow negotiated the Seeker out of not long ago.

Cassandra flushed and approached Vivienne, who moved a stiletto-heeled foot in front of the pile of metal and fabric.

"I'd like to finish, if you don't mind." Vivienne said nonchalantly, already looking back to her canvas where she brushed a few small of peachy orange. Cassandra remained stolid in her insistence to rejoin with her armor. Vivienne relented with a sigh ripe with drama and melancholy. "If you must go, I won't stop you. Just know that I did not arrange this out of anything but, well, admiration."

Cassandra swallowed hard.

"And maybe a tad of curiosity."

The pale woman felt her heart skip a beat, and despite her every impulse to feel frustration at the opulent noble who had taken her away from her troops out of _admiration _and _curiosity_ to model naked for some lewd painting, what she felt was entirely different and entirely without conventional name. The mage's face was riddled with genuine disappointment, maybe even some hint of guilt.

"Alright. You win." Cassandra conceded with a sigh, bending over to pick up the sword. It was a flimsy thing, pawned off of one of Orlesian visitors, intended far more to serve as an ornament than as any aid in a battle. She supposed it served this purpose well. She returned, approximately, to the pose she had stood in earlier: chin up, shoulders back, back arched, one foot behind the other.

At the very least, Vivienne showed some hesitation before doling out her next article of criticism.

"Darling, your legs aren't right. They need to be more open. Like you're… Bracing to deliver a blow. Or... something along those lines."

"Like this?" Cassandra said, making a slight adjustment, far more supple and receptive to her criticism than she had been earlier. Something about Vivienne's sudden rawness had softened her.

"Well, no. You need to—" Vivienne began with a pantomime that, in Cassandra's mind, meant nothing. Obviously her face betrayed this. Again the artist approached her subject with a look of vexation. "Do you mind?"

"D-do what you must." Cassandra said, her nonchalant attitude shattered by her vibrant complexion and stuttered dismissal.

"Thank you." Vivienne said politely, standing behind Cassandra and laying her silk-smooth hands on her thighs, opening them slightly. A nudge on the back of her left knee compelled her to take another half step forward. The mage stepped back, appraising, before returning to her efforts, standing in front of the woman and placing her hands on Cassandra's meager hips, turning the her more towards both her and the balcony.

Cassandra's eyes were squeezed tight as the other woman made her artistic edits. When she opened them, she found Vivienne far closer than she had expected, looking over her face in a way both clinical and intimate.

"Have you… Are you done?"

Vivienne's hard evaluative look softened into a smile.

"For now."

The clothed woman stepped back, apparently pleased with her adjustments. Her slightly further distance was a relief—if Cassandra were lucky, the few paces' distance between the pair was enough to hide the powerful thumps of her heart—but she was still, regardless of proximity, _looking. _Staring, even. It made the warrior feel so direly inclined to squirm, though given the circumstances, she felt it would be much more quick and painless if she were to resist that temptation.

"I'm starting to regret my choice of medium." Vivienne mused. "You would make a lovely sculpture. Marble, possibly. Perhaps we'll have to do this again."

"If we survive Corypheus and his army of demons, you may make as many marble sculptures of me as you wish." Cassandra said, emphasizing the first bit. Ever since the mage had arrived in Skyhold she had seemed less interested in the Inquisition's endgame and more in the social politics of Orlais, fine wine and cheese, and other such frivolous indulgences so alien to Cassandra. At her comment, the enchantress had shook her head with a smile on her face and the pair stood in momentary silence. "Can I ask you a question, Vivienne?"

"Of course, darling."

"Why did you choose me to model for you?" Cassandra asked in earnest, meeting Vivienne's eyes as best she could. "There are prettier women in Skyhold. Ones with… With hips, and overflowing bosoms, and fewer open wounds."

Her stature, for as long as she could remember, had been tall, exceptionally so, and athletic—almost masculine, in some ways, with her broad shoulders, modest chest and straight hips—and moreover, whatever artistic ideals she might have once represented were viciously marred by scars-from the top of her shoulder to the base of her right ankle she was riddled with wounds in varying degrees of healing, some red ribbon gashes and others white knots like tree bark that shone in the light.

-that marked her a veteran and a walking imperfection.

"You have something they do not, my Lady Seeker." Vivienne said, a smile—the least predatory she had seen today—on her dark lips. "An adorable druffalo-shaped birthmark right over your rump." Teased the woman, despite a "Maker!" of protest from her subject.

"That aside, it is your fire, my love." Vivienne said earnestly, with a voice genuine but bewildered, conveying patience but disbelief that the other woman truly needed this question answered. "You are so charmingly _alive_. So full of drive and spirit. The Inquisitor may be the face of this institution but you are the fire in its belly. Corypheus would likely have taken this fort thrice over if not for your proactivity. And your body is fascinating, darling. It tells a story—it is art in itself. It's only natural that someone such as myself would wish to immortalize it."

Cassandra felt her sheepishness take on a different form, one more flattered. One more shy and tender and full of bubbles. She took a deep breath. "I… I don't know what to say. Thank you, Vivienne."

"No need for gratitude, darling. It's just honesty."

"Being on the giving end of flattery is certainly among the things I least expected of you." Cassandra said, stumbling to get the sentence out. The woman standing before her was hardly known for her honeyed words of admiration. She was charming, yes, and certainly convincing—as proved by empirical evidence—but a flatterer? Hardly. Most of her 'compliments' were offhanded insults, delivered with a smile and an aura of astute wit.

"I am a generous woman, my dear." Vivienne replied. "I oft find myself on the giving end of many things."

Maybe it was the tawdry dialogue of _Swords and Shields_' latest installment clouding her mind, but Cassandra wondered, despite herself, if she was still talking about compliments. She pushed the thought away, but the ill-chosen words came stumbling out of her mouth before she even realized.

"Like what?" Cassandra said, punctuating the two syllables with a cringe.

"Well, for instance," Vivienne said casually. "I've been _giving _you a rather difficult time, or so it appears."

"You're not wrong."

"And in the contemporary Halamshiralan greeting, I am often the initiator, and thus, the giver, though that is a testament to my social stature as much as it is to my nature."

Whatever "contemporary Halamshiralan greeting" the woman spoke of was lost on the Seeker, inspiring her to cringe yet again. Had she been so horridly uncouth throughout Celene's ball, waving aside their customs like an ignoramus? It would certainly explain the odd looks and icy nature with which she was so consistently received at the event—she had at the time assumed it was due to the Inquisition's gaudy and out-of-vogue attire.

"You seem confused, my dear." Vivienne said. "I assumed it was your own obsessive modesty that kept you from following their culture. Did Josephine not instruct you on this? How unlike her."

"She had so much else on her mind. The woman had no time to sleep, let alone-"

"You need not defend her to me." Vivienne said, raising a well-manicured hand to placate. "She made the Iron Bull presentable in front of a court of some of the most stick-up-the-rear nobles to be found in Thedas. She should be sainted."

"What is this custom, then?" Cassandra asked.

"It would be easiest just to show you." Vivienne replied. "May I?"

"Why not," said Cassandra with a slight shrug of her shoulders as she consciously compelled herself to remain frozen in place as to avoid any further lost time.

The enchantress closed the distance with a step before craning her thin neck to place a pair of light kisses on Cassandra's jaw, first on the right, the left following. A light shock ran through the woman's spine, and she was unsure if it was due to the magic that ran through the veins of the Orlesian or just to the contact itself.

When Vivienne kissed her a third time, this time on her shock-parted lips, she lost the inclination to wonder. Her head swam. As chaste as the light, slightly-sticky touch had been, it was the first kiss she had received in years—her romantic life had entirely consisted of self-indulgence in poorly-written fiction and occasional wishful thinking. If it was foolish to consider the supposed social grace a gesture of romance, she didn't care—her critical thinking was overridden by the slight taste of mint from the woman's makeup and the feeling of warmth she had provided. Driven by impulse, she leaned ever-so slightly forward and kissed the woman in return, with more force than she'd intended.

Vivienne's lips parting slightly under hers suddenly jolted her back into her mind. She dropped the blade to the ground yet again and took a step back, her eyes nervously searching Vivienne's face for some sort of reaction.

"I-I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking," she apologized in earnest, her regret and shock apparent in her words.

"I don't either." Vivienne said, her smirk persisting. "But whatever it was, I wouldn't mind you having that thought more often." With that, the Orlesian countered Cassandra's backwards retreat, kissing her again, bold and confident.

"Now we're even." Vivienne murmured.

Never in her recent memory had "even" ever been enough for the socialite, so she was not particularly surprised when the woman kissed her again, deeper, laying a delicate hand over the distinctive scarred jaw, angling Cassandra's face in order to allow her greater control over her mouth. As best as she could, the warrior reciprocated, but she was clumsy and lacking in the experience and poise that Vivienne was apparently versed in, though that was the least of her concerns at the present.

The mage prolonged their embrace, their kisses silent, calm, an antithesis of the frenzy Cassandra's heartbeat and mind had been spurred into. One thousand thoughts swarmed her as she shyly returned Vivienne's embrace. There was little animosity towards women who preferred the companies of their own gender in Thedas, especially Orlais—a cultural value of the elves somehow preserved through the Tevinter domination—but regardless, she had kept any romantic affection, passing or passionate, towards any woman under wraps since she first realized that they were. And even still, here she found herself in intimate company of an Orlesian household name. Independent of her partner's gender, this would certainly win her no additional adoration from the Chantry, nor the board who would decide her fate with the Sunburst Throne. Nor would it sit easy with the rest of the Inquisition should one of the serving girls forget the Madame's expectations of privacy.

"Relax, darling." Vivienne said, resting her hands in the small, scar-riddled concavity between the Seeker's ribcage and her hips. "Your eyebrows are so knit together I could wear them as a cardigan."

Cassandra smiled at this, a sheepish and small look of agreement. "Right." The Chantry had just lost their beloved Divine in a demonic spirit explosion. If an instance or two of fraternization was enough to bar Cassandra from her aspirations, than those were no aspirations she wanted a part of—and besides, beyond the already implicated duo, the Chantry could happily remain none the wiser.

The wrinkles across her brow disappearing and her jaw unclenching, Cassandra took a cleansing breath just in time to be pushed onto the enchantress' cream-colored lounge, the suede-like upholstery warm against her bare skin. She felt the light weight of Vivienne steady atop her, the other woman's thin legs straddling her waist. Vivienne placed another kiss on the corner of Cassandra's mouth, before moving her lips gently down, along her jawline to her neck, eliciting susurrated whispers of '_Vivienne' _from the Seeker.

Vivienne ran a slender hand from Cassandra's breastbone, over her defined abs and down to the wetness in between her legs, running a finger around her warmth, earning a sigh of embarrassment and pleasure from the Seeker. With each lazy circle traced around the her lips came a mounting sense of desire and aggravation. Vivienne had proven herself ten times over an adept tease throughout the course of their rendezvous, inspiring in Cassandra equal parts frustration and arousal.

Her hips pushed upward, towards Vivienne's meandering fingers, seeking some kind of immediate pleasure. At this display, the woman just chuckled melodically to herself, kissing the Seeker along her defined collarbone, her lipstick-smudged neck.

When finally, Vivienne moved her careful fingers to that sensitive petal of flesh, Cassandra couldn't hold back her sigh of relief, quickly stifled by Vivienne's mouth on hers, her kiss hungry and deep. Vivienne's free hand entwined in her hair, pulling her head ever so slightly back and the woman's weight upon her hips painted for Cassandra a rather embarrassing picture of her own submission, her own inexperience. Were Vivienne fishing for blackmail material, there was plenty to be found in this dynamic.

As Vivienne slipped a finger inside the Nevarran and continued to rub the woman's clit with a steady, rhythmic pulse, Cassandra let out moans, far more girlish and emphatic than she had intended, into her companion's mouth, her hips arching desperately, begging for more.

"My, I feel as if I'm corrupting some innocent Chantry mouse," Vivienne said with a rich smile, persistent with her calculated, quickening movements below Cassandra's waist. "Please don't tell me you've not done this before, dear."

"I have." Cassandra managed in between breaths, which she seemed to be unable to catch enough of in between Vivienne's deep kisses and gasp-inspiring movements. "It's been a—a while."

"I can tell." Vivienne purred, suddenly swinging one leg over Cassandra's waist, proverbially dismounting. Cassandra thought at first she'd said something wrong, until an immediate command from the Orlesian indicated otherwise. "Sit up."

She did so, propping herself up against the rounded arm of the lounge, her legs folded in front of her. In no time, Vivienne was sitting at her feet, her hands on Cassandra's scraped knees.

With a gentle push-pull and the power of suggestion, Cassandra's thighs were parted and in an instant, one of Vivienne's hands propping her up, the other idly on her stomach, the woman in white bowed her head down to the warmth in between her legs. Cassandra's heart was racing and a sense of vertigo mounting, her embarrassment making linear thought near impossible.

"I doubt he ever did this for you, my darling." Vivienne said in a forceful murmur before busying her mouth with something else entirely.

She was right, of course, and the new sensation was both strange and immensely pleasant, independent of her apple-red cheeks and spinning head. The hand on Cassandra's stomach traced slow spirals, difficult but not impossible to feel through the waves of pleasure emanating from the center of her hips. The feeling of those close-trimmed nails running against her abs became suddenly distinguished as the tiniest jolts of electricity began to stream from the mage's hand and scatter gently but paralyzingly across Cassandra's skin, a feeling similar to the brush of moth wings, but sharp, bold.

Now about _that_, the Chantry _would _have something to say. Cassandra's right leg began to gently twitch, her head reared back against the curve of the armrest as the mage continued to go down on her, her feelings of self-consciousness and paramount exposure melting away into ecstasy. As Vivienne's tongue began to flick faster over her clit, the woman found herself biting in tender earnest the back of her hand to keep her moans from coloring Skyhold.

Vivienne's hands, still surging with power, glanced over Cassandra's body, the light purple hairs of diminished lightning bolts fizzing across her stomach and the cusp of her breasts. The Seeker bit down harder on the glove-calloused flesh on her hand when Vivienne slipped a hand, bristling with storm magic, down to Cassandra's wetness, wasting little time before running it to her clit.

"Maker," breathed Cassandra as the tremors in her thighs came in faster intervals, radiant warmth emanating from all the places to which Vivienne paid her adept attention.

With her free hand, Vivienne had taken to pleasuring herself, her whole body coursing with an ethereal glow as she touched herself, her breath hitching and breathy moans escaping past her lips. Her immense beauty was not lost on Cassandra, never had been—to her, it seemed almost an impossibility that the woman who could have just about anyone's head on a plate if she willed it would take any carnal interest in her, but low and behold… It seemed to Vivienne that this was not so different from the battlefield or the court spectacle—she was alight with vitality and magic in equal measure, thin veins of ice and storm rippling across her dark skin and her eyes moon bright.

Her thoughts were jostled from her mind as she started to feel herself finally reaching release, her toes curling and thin groans of pleasure bubbling out of her mouth. The enchantress must have sensed it, as she straightened her back and pulled her head up, rolling back her shoulders and looking down at the shakily breathing Cassandra.

Vivienne climbed back over Cassandra, her smaller body leveling smoothly over hers and her dark eyes holding Cassandra's amber brown ones. Though the Seeker's eyes squeezed shut when Vivienne's fingers returned, she could still feel her gaze on her. Vivienne's elegant hips met hers, separated only by the mage's fingers, rippling with magic and moving with precision to sate the both of them.

Cassandra's shallow gasps were stifled by Vivienne's mouth crashing down upon hers, their tongues quickly intertwining as the noblewoman abandoned restraint. She could taste herself on the other woman, but she didn't, or couldn't, care, feeling Vivienne's frenzied heat as she was pulled over the edge, dragging her with her.

In the wake of their release, Vivienne briefly maintained her position over the warrior, both stealing brief glances at each other's faces as they recovered their breaths in shuddering inhales, shuddering exhales. Then, Vivienne stepped with surprising and practiced composure away from the woman, adjusted the waistband of her pants with a nonchalant attitude that bordered on aggravating, and returned to her easel.

"After all this, you're really going to just…" Cassandra began with a smile curling on her lips as she watched the woman set about her business.

"As I mentioned earlier, it is a fool who doesn't pounce on the opportunity to immortalize beauty on her canvas."

As Cassandra watched, confused and still more than a smidge tired and overcome by mixed feeling, the enchantress removed the half-finished piece from it's lodging and leaned it neatly against a table, replacing the vacancy with an identical canvas. She slipped wordlessly onto her stool and made a few initial strokes with a thick grey pencil, glancing at the woman on the lounge as she did so.

"Don't move, my dear." Vivienne said cattishly. "You look stunning as you are now."


End file.
